research essay

OR Books

Chapter Title: THE MYTH OF ISRAELI MORALITY Chapter Author(s): Lamis Andoni

Book Title: Midnight on the Mavi Marmara Book Subtitle: The Attacks on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and How it Changed the Course of the Israel/Palestine Conflict Book Editor(s): Moustafa Bayoumi Published by: OR Books. (2010) Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt207g7v3.34

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THE MYTH OF ISRAELI MORALITY

Lamis Andoni

Th e Israeli attack on the international aid fl otilla—killing nine and in- juring dozens more—is not the fi rst example of nonviolent resistance by Palestinians and their supporters being met by force.

Israel has, in fact, at diff erent times reacted with repression or even extreme violence to cultural and political manifestations of Pal- estinian identity.

But the fl otilla carnage is the fi rst direct and offi cially declared at- tack by the Israeli Army on foreign activists—taking Israel’s reaction to solidarity activities to a new and unprecedented level.

Israeli claims that Turkish activists “resisted” its takeover of the ships do not change the reality that the Israeli Army performed an illegal armed operation against activists who challenged the siege of Gaza—not with weapons, but by trying to deliver food and medical supplies to the besieged Palestinian population.

Impunity for Israel has already been shown in the cases of West- ern peace activists Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndell who were killed while peacefully protesting against Israeli Army actions against Pal- estinian citizens.

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174 4. INSIDE ISRAEL

AN ACT OF FEAR

But Israel’s reaction was not merely an act of arrogance. It was also an act of fear and weakness in the face of a rising tide of Palestinian and international civic campaigns.

Israeli concerns run so deep that it has been pouring money and energy into a worldwide campaign to counter what it considers to be a drive “aimed at delegitimizing” Israel.

But Israel’s own actions, such as the raid on the aid ship, only serve to reinforce the image of a state fully engaged in illegal actions in the Occupied Territories and beyond.

Israel’s reaction to nonviolent protests inside and outside the Oc- cupied Territories is part of its fear of the assertion of Palestinian identity in the historic land of Palestine.

Aft er its establishment in 1948, Israel placed the Palestinian Arab population that remained under harsh military rule, banning the teaching of Palestinian and Arab history, poetry, and songs.

Th ose who defi ed the ban were imprisoned, or in the case of the late poet Mahmoud Darwish, forced into exile where they sought to freely express the yearnings of a dispossessed nation.

Following the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel cracked down on Palestinian political leaders, who were round- ed up and many simply deported to Jordan.

In 1974 Israel “authorized” municipal elections, only to deport the winners when Palestinians elected supporters of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Israeli extremists attacked two of the elected mayors, of Ramallah and Nablus, maiming both men.

None of those elected were known to have any association with armed struggle but belonged to the Palestinian intelligen- tsia, including Hanna Nasser, then president of the University of Beir Zeit.

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THE MYTH OF ISRAELI MORALITY 175

DEPORTATION, IMPRISONMENT, ASSASSINATION

Deportations and imprisonment were part of a systemic policy to preempt the emergence of an independent political leadership in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, while for those outside the Occupied Territories—intellectuals in Beirut and PLO ambassadors in Europe—assassination was the order of the day throughout the 1970s.

In 1972, one of Palestine’s fi nest novelists, Ghassan Kanafani, was killed in a car bomb and, in 1973, poet Kamal Nasser was assassinated by a Mossad hit team led by Ehud Barak, the current Israeli defense minister.

Both operations were carried out in the heart of Beirut. Until the signing of the Oslo agreement in 1993 the raising of the

Palestinian fl ag—and at times the public display in any form of the banner’s colors—were acts that triggered punishment.

Young Palestinians, including children, were shot at and some- times wounded or even killed for daring to display the fl ag in public.

Even symbolic acts suggesting recognition of Palestinian rights are not tolerated by Israel.

PEACEFUL RESISTANCE

In 1988 the PLO invited international writers, artists and activists to travel by ship along with scores of Palestinians who had been de- ported by Israel and representatives of refugees to make a symbolic journey “of return.”

Aft er successfully intimidating Greek vessel owners from renting a ship to the PLO, Israel then bombed a Cypriot boat a few hours before the solidarity activists, including Westerners—Christians and Jews—were to board it.

But while the 1988 bombing—at the peak of the fi rst Palestinian

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176 4. INSIDE ISRAEL

intifada—aimed at blocking the journey itself, the ferocity of the armed campaign against the Gaza fl otilla suggests that Israel, more than ever before, is deeply concerned about the success of peaceful means of resistance.

Israel correctly viewed the Free Gaza convoy as part of a Palestin- ian and international campaign not only to break the siege of the tiny Strip, but to end its occupation and to recognize legitimate Palestin- ian national rights.

But the idea that the use of military force can stop the campaign from spreading is ludicrous—unless Israel plans to blow up protests everywhere from the village of Bil’in in the West Bank to London, Berlin, and San Francisco.

Israel has already employed a public relations campaign to demon- ize and discredit the growing boycott campaign—modeled aft er a sim- ilar campaign against the former apartheid regime in South Africa.

It has also been engaged in a weekly campaign of arrests and in- creasingly the shooting and wounding of Palestinian, Western, and even Israeli activists protesting against the illegal segregation wall that has been eating up West Bank land in the villages of Bil’in and Ni’lin.

Th e Israeli government has been intolerant of diplomatic attempts by the Palestinian Authority to curtail the expansion of Jewish settle- ments in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the lift ing of the siege of Gaza Strip.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, complained to George Mitchell, the American special envoy to the Middle East, that the P.A. had lobbied internationally to block the admission of Israel to the prestigious Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and accused the Palestinian govern- ment of incitement for endorsing a boycott of the produce of illegal settlements.

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THE MYTH OF ISRAELI MORALITY 177

SENDING A MESSAGE

Th us while Israel feels entitled to practice what are essentially vio- lent acts—enforced as they are by military strength—of settlement building on confi scated Palestinian land, it wants to strip Palestin- ians, including the P.A., of the means by which to voice their demands peacefully.

Ironically, it was Turkey who facilitated Israel’s admission into the infl uential OECD, only to be paid back soon aft er with the killing of its nationals on board the Gaza-bound fl otilla.

Israel, it seems, wanted to send a message to allies and oppo- nents alike that it does not tolerate dissent or defi ance—even in a peaceful form.

When its enemies use force, Israel feels it can rely on its arsenal of tanks and bombs. But what the raid on the fl otilla shows is that, when possible, it also responds with military action to nonviolent resistance.

Th e fl otilla, sailing unprotected in international waters, appeared a good target against which Israel could exercise the plan of action it knows best—the lethal use of force.

Th e 2006 war on Lebanon and the 2008–2009 war on Gaza re- vealed the limits of Israeli military supremacy in achieving its politi- cal goals, and the attack on the fl otilla has backfi red disastrously.

Th e bullets that pierced the bodies of the activists have boomer- anged, shattering the myth of Israeli morality.

In fact, the increasing calls in its wake for an immediate end to the blockade of Gaza now show that Israel has failed and the Free Gaza Movement prevailed.

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